Note 48 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The story of the migration from Ma’rib, as related below, may have some historical basis, but the Dam itself was not finally destroyed until long afterwards. Inscriptions carved on the existing ruins show that it was more or less in working order down to the middle of the sixth century a.d. The first recorded flood took place in 447-450, and on another occasion (in 539-542) the Dam was partially reconstructed by Abraha, the Abyssinian viceroy of Yemen. See E. Glaser, Zwei Inschriften über den Dammbruch von Mârib (Mitteilungen der Vorderastatischen Gesellschaft, 1897, 6).